#SaveBristolBay
When you think about fishing, you usually think about beautiful landscapes, dense wilderness, and catching beautiful wild fish. This is all possible to experience in the Bristol Bay water shed… for right now. If the proposed plan to open a massive pit mine that stretches over 20 miles, one of the largest mines in the world, goes through, it would ruin all of this. Bristol Bay is home to the largest sockeye salmon run in the world, the largest chinook salmon run in Alaska, and a world class trophy rainbow trout fishery. And not only would the choice to destroy this world class salmon fishery devastate recreational anglers, it would destroy approximately 1.5 billion dollars in annual economic activity in the region. This fishery supports over 30 native tribes and provides thousands of jobs for commercial anglers, and guides for the recreational fisheries, as well as all the lodges and shops that cater to the fishing industry in the region. It won’t stop at destroying the salmon run and local economy, it will destroy the entire environment as many animals rely on the annual salmon run for food and as a source of nutrients,
There is more than one voice involved in this fight against the pebble mine and the EPA but the main one is Trout Unlimited, the nations oldest and largest cold water fisheries conservation organization dedicated to preserving, protecting, and restoring North American trout and salmon populations and their watersheds. It is ironic that a public interest group is suing the EPA, a government organization that is supposed to protect the environment, as is in its name. So for our environment to be protected, we need to rely on public interest groups to combat and stop the environmental protection agency from selling out one of the last truly pristine environments left on earth and all the people who rely on it to make ends meet. This is a disturbing trend that has become common in this era of industrial expansion. If you feel like getting depressed, take a look at this Time Line to see just how the environment is under attack. This isn’t talking about global warming or climate change, which some say is a hoax created by the Chinese, but rather physical rollbacks on regulations preventing mining companies from dumping waste into rivers, opening up state parks up to drilling and fracking companies, and a plethora of actual, completely undeniable, attacks on our environment and this beautiful land that we and all the animals that we share it with call home.
This a strip mine. It is much smaller than the proposed Pebble Mine.
I wrote about going to Alaska as a bucket list trip in a previous blog. If this mine gets approved, there would be no point in going to this area or anywhere near it. It is projected to destroy over 80 miles of stream and decimate the salmon and trout fisheries that rely on this pristine water to survive. Also, if you enjoy eating salmon, get ready for a massive price hike as over half of the worlds salmon comes from Bristol Bay.
This is what Bristol Bay looks like now
Image by Alaska Conservation Foundation
As the world becomes increasingly digital, the minerals and materials needed to make all that Technology have to come from somewhere. As we use up our earths finite resources, and the Pebble deposit is, by some miracle, left untouched, will the fight to protect our environment over mineral mining and other dangerous industries ever end, and is it a fight that we can win? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I can tell you that there will always be people who want to protect the environment and see it as our moral obligation as inhabitants of this wonderful planet to protect the few wild places left undisturbed, even if the government and powerful cooperations don’t want us too.